1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to packet forwarding in a communications network, such as packet flow optimization also known as deep packet inspection.
2. Background
Networks of general-purpose computer systems and other devices connected by external communication links are well known. A network node is a device or computer system connected by the communication links. As used herein, an end node is a network node that is configured to originate or terminate communications over the network. In contrast, an intermediate network node facilitates the passage of data between end nodes. Information is exchanged between network nodes according to one or more of many well known, new or still developing protocols. In this context, a protocol consists of a set of rules defining how the nodes interact with each other based on information sent over the communication links.
Subscribers often obtain access to a network of a Service Provider (SP) through a node acting as an access gateway (AG). Once the subscriber is authenticated, data flows from the subscriber are subject to control by the SP at the AG based on a subscriber profile in a network policy manager. Many current network policy managers exchange messages with the AG to pass information about charging the subscriber for data packet traffic and providing a particular quality of service (a particular combination of guaranteed communications properties, such as bandwidth, noise, jitter, and delay) using a protocol called the Ty Interface. The Ty interface specification is available from the 3rd generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) at World Wide Web domain 3gpp.org. Current policy managers in general, and the Ty interface in particular, do not provide information on packet flow optimization (PFO), by which data packets are forwarded at the AG based on information within a payload of a routed protocol, such as the Internet Protocol (IP).